Amazon Prime No-Rush Credits

If you have paid for Amazon Prime ($99/year), you can opt for No-Rush shipping. In other words, you opt for slower delivery than the default Prime two-day shipping (PDF).

I usually select No Rush and build credits toward digital videos or games. (Like this! Free!)

You can check your balance at www.amazon.com/NoRushCredits. You may want to bookmark this; it's hard to find. You can also see them as a credit on the Checkout screen. If you order something they can be used for, it is automatically applied.

Amazon is a bit vague about how long the credits might last. So I reviewed my past No-Rush emails and tallied their expiration dates.

Contents

Distinct time boundaries

I've been using Prime and No-Rush for almost two years. When you use No-Rush, you get a "Benefit Confirmation for your Order" email when it's delivered, telling you when the credit expires.

Across 111 emails back to 2015 (see below), I found a minimum of 34 days, medians of 66 to 94 days, and a max of 248 days for one particular order (8 months!). Most of them are from 50 to 150 days, in the past 12 months or so.

Importantly, it is not a fixed number of days from when you ordered. Instead, there is a particular boundary in the future. For example, from April until now, I've had 16 credits that expire on 9/17/17. (Except one that was for 8/31/17; go figure.) It's like this... the number of days and the value of the boundary doesn't make any particular sense from afar. Maybe it depends on something; maybe on what you ordered? Or maybe if you use some credits, it moves the boundary? Who knows.

The email you get for each credit

Regardless, it does work as advertised: You get credits that you'll need to use sometime in the coming months or they'll expire.

If you watch your Benefit emails, the current boundary should be clear. For my credits expiring Sept. 17, I will set up a calendar notification early September to remind me to use them.

I've tried calling Amazon for any more insights, but so far, no one has gotten back to me with any. Stay tuned.

Data

I reviewed all 111 of my Benefit emails to date (7/28/17). Each row below shows the number of emails that had the particular expiration date shown.

I did this in a very simple way, just searching my gmail on "Benefit Confirmation for your Order" and stepping through them (gmail j/k keys) and watching the expiration date. Then I logged the first and last order dates for that group. January 2016 and before, the email titles were different.

Group

Start

End

Exp. Date

Min

Days

Max

Days

Times

Notes

1

05/05/17

07/25/17

09/17/17

54

135

15

All titled "Benefit Confirmation for your Order (#)" until early 2016 (below)

2

04/26/17

04/26/17

08/13/17

109

109

1

3

04/11/17

04/11/17

09/17/17

159

159

1

4

03/18/17

04/08/17

06/11/17

64

85

6

5

02/28/17

02/28/17

08/31/17

184

184

1

6

01/24/17

02/25/17

06/11/17

106

138

9

7

01/12/17

01/13/17

04/09/17

86

87

4

8

11/29/16

01/06/17

02/28/17

53

91

10

9

11/25/16

11/25/16

07/31/17

248

248

1

Yes, 248 days! $97 headboard for mom

10

10/03/16

11/14/16

02/28/17

106

148

13

11

07/07/16

09/19/16

11/20/16

62

136

6

12

06/18/16

06/18/16

09/30/16

104

104

1

13

03/27/16

06/12/16

07/31/16

49

126

10

14

03/14/16

03/14/16

04/30/16

47

47

1

15

03/10/16

03/10/16

05/15/16

66

66

1

16

03/05/16

03/05/16

04/30/16

56

56

4

17

03/05/16

03/05/16

05/15/16

71

71

1

18

03/03/16

03/03/16

04/30/16

58

58

1

19

02/26/16

02/26/16

03/31/16

34

34

1

20

01/27/16

02/26/16

05/15/16

79

109

15

21

01/05/16

01/14/16

03/01/16

47

56

2

The first of new "Benefit" email title style was gorked, "Benefit Confirmation for your Order #orderId#". The rest (above) properly show order number.

22

11/28/15

12/17/15

03/01/16

75

94

5

Title "Your Amazon.com Promotional Credit", here and earlier

23

08/31/15

09/22/15

11/14/15

53

75

2

Beware what you spend your credits on

Group shows how many emails in a row had the particular Expiration Date shown. This is not a completely sensical grouping; it's just how my emails were, working backwards by date of emails. I don't know if Amazon has some logical reason for how results are scattered and sometimes overlap.

Start is the first date seen for this particular Expiration Date in that particular group of emails.

End is the end for that group.

Exp. Date is the expiration date for all the emails in that group.

Min Days is the minimum number of days until the credit expired, for that group (Exp. Date minus End).

Max Days is the maximum number of days (Exp. Date minus Start).

Times is how many emails had that expiration date. Please keep in mind that the times I chose No-Rush shipping was purely coincidental... this was not a systematic test. But the results still provide insight into how it works.

How has it worked form me?

I've earned a total of 111 credits, but have only used 59, with 16 still outstanding. So I've lost 36, apparently. It was only by doing all this work that I realized this.

You can get a close approximation of how many credits you earned in total by seeing how many emails you have titled "Benefit Confirmation for your Order"; this works back to January 2016. I don't know of an easy way to see how many credits you've used except to walk back through your orders. The Order Details screen shows how many No-Rush Reward credits were applied.

Now I know that the expiration date is not a constantly moving target. I need to watch the boundary dates on my Benefit emails; they might very well apply to many credits.

Update 9/4/17

I have my third call into Amazon support. They always do the same thing: a first line rep hears I'm writing an article and closely follows my every word (bless her heart), promising me someone else will get back to me.

And then I get another bland email saying only the general A.P. NRC info we all can see from day one.

I am trying various methods to get to someone real in Amazon. Wish me luck.